Pallets are commonplace in the freight industry as they are a convenient means for supporting and transporting goods. Pallets can be in the form of simple frames for supporting loaded goods. These simple frame pallets require fork lifts or other machinery to load and unload the pallets from containers. Other forms of pallets have their own means for mobility in the form of wheels and hence can be rolled and more conveniently loaded and unloaded from containers.
Once loaded in the container the container doors are closed and the container can be freighted by road, rail, air or sea. Due to the sheer number of containers manufactured by different manufacturers there will inevitably be variations in container size including variations in the floor area inside a container. Consequently, while some pallets may fit tightly in one container and are therefore restrained against movement, the same pallets in other containers may have substantial gaps between the pallet edges and container walls. Such gaps cause problems with longitudinal and lateral movement of pallets within the container during transportation which can result in damage to the load being transported. Furthermore, pallets, which are usually manually loaded into the containers, are often not centred exactly on the container floor with equal spacing on either side but may be closer to one side wall more than the other which makes it more difficult to restrain the pallet inside the container.
The present mobile pallet provides a pallet that can be easily loaded and unloaded from a container and that can compensate for variations in size between containers to restrain the pallet within a container.